Light was creeping back into the room. Rafe had not noticed it happening, but he could make out form in the shapes on the wall now, and when he glanced across at Hope he could see her closed eyes, welling tears.

“I’m hungry,” he said.

Hope’s eyes snapped open. She wiped at the tears with her shirtsleeves and stood. “Of course you are. So am I. Son, I’m going out for food. There’s a trader down the street who will have opened by now. You stay here. Don’t touch anything, and don’t open the door! You cannot be seen by anyone. Anyone.”

“I don’t know what to do,” Rafe said, and he felt his own tears coming. “Everyone I know is dead. I have to get back to Uncle Vance, he’ll know what to do. He’ll look after me.”

“Is that the same uncle that left you to wander to the outskirts of the hidden districts? Not a good place to be, son. It’s a good job it was me who found you and not someone else.” Hope shrugged on a cloak and picked up a couple of objects from a table against a wall.

“He’s all I have left,” Rafe said, heartbroken at the truth of things. “He’ll help me.”

“Well, whatever. Stay here for now. I’ll be back before you notice I’m gone. Then we can eat and talk things over a little more.” Hope smiled at him before leaving, but it was not an expression that made Rafe feel comfortable and safe.

HOPE EMERGED ONTO the street and leaned against a wall for a moment, gathering her thoughts. There was plenty she had not told Rafe, but he was a mass of mysteries himself. He mourned dead parents that she was certain were not his. He wished for an uncle who was no relation, someone who had been so keen to help that he had let his grief-stricken “nephew” out into the streets around the hidden districts. He was a young lad barely embracing manhood, and yet he could well hold the future in his palms.

Hope shook her head. She had heard so many stories, so much wild mythology twisted over time so that any spark of truth must be long malformed, that she had stopped truly believing years ago. And now magic was alive and well in her basement rooms. She had thought she still believed, had continued living as though she knew it would happen eventually, but in reality, she had given up hope.

He has no navel. But even that was now more myth than anything else. She was thrilled, excited and terrified, but it might take some time for her belief to catch up with her enthusiasm. And perhaps it would take proof.

If Rafe was truly a conduit for magic reborn, she must surely see it soon.